Palmerton's long cinder bank is more than cinders, say zinc company officials: It's an old borough dump, too, and local taxpayers should have to help pay to clean it up.

Zinc Corporation of America says if environmental agencies don't hold the borough liable for part of the cleanup cost, the company may do so in a lawsuit. The cleanup, they warn, could bankrupt both the company and the borough.

"The borough has been looking at this as if it's someone else's problem," said ZCA President Gary Wickham. "But we're all in this together."

Ed Shoener, regional director for the state Department of Environmental Resources, said the responsibility for the cinder bank "is clearly the company's."

"The bank is 99 percent cinders. The garbage is not an issue," Shoener said. "The Environmental Protection Agency has not pursued the borough in any way, and neither has DER."

But, Shoener said, the company could sue the borough to try to recover some of its costs.

The cost to the borough, if any, would depend on which cleanup method EPA imposes. ZCA could be required to cap the bank with clay and topsoil -- which could cost as much as $250 million. The company would prefer to revegetate the bank, as it is doing on Blue Mountain.

Wickham said the more costly the cleanup, the more likely it is the company will sue the borough.

"The company won't shoulder that alone," he said. "We can't."

In a May 26 letter, Wickham asks Palmerton to join the company in persuading EPA to accept revegetation.

Borough Manager Rodger Danielson said council is very concerned about liability. He said there is no way to estimate, but the cost to the borough could be devastating.

From the early 1920s to early 1970s, the borough paid the zinc company to bury the municipal garbage in the cinder bank, which now stretches 2-1/2 miles along the mountain base.

The garbage is at the east end of the bank, but no one knows exactly where or how much. If the waste was documented, the documents are lost.

James Ord, a Palmerton resident who worked for the zinc company 40 years, said the borough trucked the garbage to the old Chestnut Ridge Railroad Station near the 6th Street bridge. The trucks dumped it into rail cars, which hauled it to the cinder bank.

Charles Tomb of Palmerton, a civil engineer for the zinc company for 35 years, said he thinks the side-dumping cars carried about 30 tons and the borough filled about 1-1/2 cars a week.

If so, there's more than 100,000 tons of garbage buried in the 33 million tons of smelter cinders.

EPA listed the cinder bank on the Superfund National Priorities List in 1982.

ZCA is being held liable for the cleanup because it owns the land under the bank. ZCA's predecessor, New Jersey Zinc Co., once operated the zinc smelter that produced the cinders. Paramount Communications is being held liable because it owns Gulf Western Industries, which also ran the smelter.

Tony Koller of EPA said he doubts the agency would ever hold the borough even partially liable.

"It's possible, but the bank was put on the National Priorities List because of the high content of heavy metals in the smelter ashes, not because of the landfill," Koller said. "The landfill has never been considered a problem."

Koller said EPA would pursue the borough only if the landfill is harming the environment.

Fires burn within the bank, bringing additional cleanup problems, and some say the garbage is what's burning.

Koller said EPA would first have to determine that the garbage is smoldering, not the cinders. Then, EPA would have to determine that the fire emissions are hazardous.

In 1988, EPA decided the bank should be capped with clay and covered with 18 inches of topsoil -- a million cubic yards.

A feasibility study, however, showed that would cost $250 million and recommended the bank instead be revegetated with sludge and ash.

EPA and DER are reconsidering the 1988 decision.

"Technically, the cinder bank is a waste pile, possibly the biggest in the state, and state regulations say it has to be capped," Shoener said. "But the regulations were not designed for a bank this big."

Shoener said there may be a satisfactory solution that doesn't meet all the regulations.

"Stabilizing the bank is the first priority, and revegetation would do that," he said.

The company has agreed to conduct five studies on the cinder bank in an effort to show capping and topsoil would be too costly and revegetation would work.